Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway 90th anniversary gala

Posted: 22/5/17​Last updated: 22/05/17When most people reach the age of 90, there's a limit to what they can do to celebrate. Happily, the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway was able to celebrate it's ninth decade of being 'the world's smallest public railway' in grand style.From start (at 9:30am) to finish (at 4am for me!) Kent's 'mainline in miniature' put on a fantastic show. It was my first visit to an RHDR gala and I will certainly return for many more! The timetable provided more or less non-stop action with trains running every 15 minutes on the Hythe - New Romney section during the day and trains continuing overnight as well. And I was pleasantly surprised to turn up at the ticket office and get change from a £20 note! Not only that, but I was pleased to discover that I could stay for the night without having to buy another day ticket from midnight onwards. Full marks for common sense ticketing!​The one minor hiccup was the failure of star loco No.5 'Hercules', which has only just returned from a major overhaul but sadly failed on only it's second run on Saturday! It meant it missed out on the special 90 mile run planned for it on Sunday and 'Winston Churchill' took its place.

Party atmosphere

There was a great atmosphere all day - almost every train was full and everyone seemed to be having a great time. One downside of the intensive service on the double track section was that there were fewer trains to Dungeness, which seemed to be where everyone wanted to go! It meant I planned to board several of the trains heading that way, but was either beaten to the spaces left by the time it got to New Romney or felt the effort of squeezing in next to three other people and bringing my DSLR camera and tripod with me was too much! I did get out to Dungeness in the end though!​The real fun, of course, started after dark. There is something very special about a steam train at night (even miniature ones). The swirling steam, the clickety clack, the twinkling lights of the towns sliding by. The stories exchanged on board - 'do you remember when...?', or 'I wonder where we've got to now?' - we just hoped the driver knew! I met some great people and learnt a lot about the history of the line. In fact, the night trains proved so popular extra carriages were added - it was a very special experience, particularly the 2am parallel run. The photos and videos hopefully go some way to capturing the atmosphere of the occasion.

Locomotives

It was great to see almost all of the RHDR's fleet in action, assisted by three visitors. The visitors certainly demonstrated the variety of styles possible with the same gauge with 'Wroxham Broad' and 'Blickling Hall' from the Bure Valley rather towering over the home locos and 4-4-0 'Synolda' from the Ravensglass & Eskdale representing the other end of the scale. She looked small even next to the 1/3 scale RHDR locos! T​he morning parallel run with 'Hurricane' and 'Blickling Hall' made for an interesting contrast in size! (See left)

Synolda (1912)

Synolda is an interesting locomotive, being older than the RHDR itself! The 4-4-0 was constructed by Bassett Lowke in 1912 for the Sand Hutton Railway before becoming the first 15 inch gauge loco to run on the Ravensglass and Eskdale Railway in 1915 with Narrow Gauge Railways, the company Basset Lowke formed to run the R&ER. Synolda is normally a museum piece (which is how I last saw it) so it was lovely to see this quaint old engine in steam. 'Synolda' also came with a very nice driver from the R&ER who was chatty and happy to answer questions about his stead.

Wroxham Broad (1964, rebuilt 1992)

'Wroxham Broad' may well be unique in that it was originally constructed in 1964 as steam outline diesel locomotive, but was rebuilt to be 'live steam' in 1992! The locomotive led a rather nomadic existence, including spending four years in the 1970s on the RHDR. In 1991 it was purchased by the Bure Valley Railway and rebuilt as a steam locomotive the following year.​On Saturday it ran double headed with No.10 'Dr Syn', which was another interesting combination!

Blickling Hall (1992)

'Blickling Hall' was designed for the Bure Valley Railway. It is a half sized version of 2 foot 6 inch gauge Indian Railways 'ZB' class locomotives.